Snake Bitten Family Loses Dream Home

November 05, 1995|By Michael Dougan, San Francisco Examiner.

The first snake that appeared in Rena and Mike Robinson's Lake County, Calif., home was an adorable, deadly baby rattler. The diamondback brushed against Rena Robinson's bare foot as she stood in the kitchen one morning in July.

She moved her family out of the Kelseyville house a few hours later.

"She freaked," recalled Mike Robinson.

Within a week, hundreds of snakes were discovered in, under and around the house. "We haven't slept there since," he said.

The discovery of the snakes was the beginning of a chain of events that has led the family to the brink of losing their $175,000, 2,000-square-foot dream home.

Robinson, a 29-year-old mortgage broker, and his wife, 28, had planned to spend their lives in their country home, surrounded by chickens, guinea hens, peacocks and pigs. They named their youngest child Kelsey, in honor of the place she would be raised.

Now they're living in a two-bedroom rental in nearby Lakeport that's owned by his father. Their three children, ages 6 months to 5 years, are sleeping in the same room. Their Kelseyville property is surrounded by yellow warning tape, and the lender is poised to foreclose.

All because of the snakes.

Once Mrs. Robinson spotted the first viper, additional sightings came by the hour. Robinson killed a 3-foot rattler underneath his daughter's bed. But most, he said, were shorter than 12 inches in length, suggesting that the crawlspace beneath his house had become a serpent nursery.

"We put a bunch of bleach down under the house," Mike said. "It created a mass exodus of snakes from underneath the house to the hills. We were shooting snakes off the back deck."

The Robinsons had lived in their home since 1993, when they began teaching themselves how to raise livestock.

"First I got two chickens, then I got two more," Robinson recalled. "Then I got two pigs. I bought the books on what to do."

Since leaving the house, they have discovered a number of chickens and peacocks lying dead and stiff, their feathers unruffled. Robinson is certain they were victims of rattlesnake venom.

Prior to his wife's kitchen encounter, Robinson had only spotted one diamondback on his property in two years. Beginning on the day the family moved out, he saw many more. He believes they were driven to the hill on which he lived when three nearby creeks flooded during last winter's lengthy deluge.

"It would be easy for me to say I literally saw hundreds of snakes over that four-day period, but to be conservative I would say that close to 100 or so babies were born under the house," he said. "And it's like radar: That's their place to have babies now. We killed quite a few of them, but there's dozens and dozens that got away, and they're going to come back."

Robinson said the snakes might return to his house to hibernate beginning in November. He doesn't plan to be there.

"We haven't been foreclosed yet, but we're going to be," he said. "The mortgage company has been very hesitant to move forward with the foreclosure. They realize in this small county they can't take the property back and just sell it six months later. That house is going to be known as the snake house forever."

The snakes weren't the only problem. When word of the infestation spread through Lake County -- population 50,000 -- the Robinsons' home was burglarized and vandalized.

Robinson has gotten lots of advice about how to get rid of the snakes. Some callers have suggested he get pigs, which supposedly devour rattlers.

"Well, I was running half a dozen pigs out there before we discovered the snakes," he said. "The pigs aren't going to do anything."

Currently, his only plan is to permit a pair of rattlesnake hunters from Santa Rosa to sleep in the house for a few nights while they kill the slithering critters for their skins and rattles.

Even if the house is declared snake-free, the surrounding grounds remain infested, he said. No amount of snake control will tempt the Robinsons to return.

"We're just personally at the point where we'll never live there again," said Robinson. "I mean we can't. We've got three little kids."

Gone with the house is their dream of living in the country.

`So much for the country life, for teaching the kids about nature," he said.